Widest Opportunity For Voting

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30302, 30 November 1963, Page 12

Widest Opportunity For Voting

All citizens are urged to vote in the General Election today. More than 800 polling places in Christchurch, the rest of Canterbury, Westland, Nelson, Marlborough, and the Waitaki electoral district are listed on page 10. New Zealand law oilers electors the widest possible opportunity and convenience for voting. All electors are expected to vote in their own districts; but those who are outside their own electorates today are entitled to cast a special vote at anypolling place. Electors whose names are not on the 1963 rolls, but who were enrolled lor the last election, are also entitled to a special vote. Persons who have left the electorate in which they were previously enrolled, but have not registered in their new district, may cast a special vole by naming their former electorate on the special voting form. All persons who consider themselves entitled to vote may seek voting papers. The returning officer, in consultation with the Registrar of Electors, will determine the validity of such votes. During polling hours today, special voting papers may be issued from polling places. As far as practicable, returning ollicers have already provided facilities for special voting at hospitals, maternity homes, aged people’s homes, and similar institutions. Any person requiring a special vote today because of illness or disability may engage some other person to collect voting papers from a polling place. He may telephone the party workers who have advertised their services in this, or arrange with a friend or neighbour to collect the papers. He must give that person a written request to the deputy returning officer at a polling place, naming the person to whom the papers are to be handed. The voter’s signature on the declaration form must be witnessed, and the witness of (he signature may be any person. Envelopes supplied by the deputy returning officer must be returned to any polling place with the voting papers before 7 p.m. A blind person, or a person unable to read or write because of some handicap, who cannot go to a polling place may have his papers marked by another person. In a polling place, he may be accompanied by the deputy returning officer and a poll clerk, or another person he nominates. The deputy returning officer shall assist him to mark the papers. Polling places are open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and any elector who is inside the booth before 7 p.m. may vote. Returning ollicers report that the rush hours for voting are usually the first hour after the poll opens and the half hour before seven o’clock. These are the times in which there may be some delay in obtaining voting papers for the Parliamentary election and the vote on the sale of liquor.